The Amundsen-Isaacman-Weyland Model of Private Space Expeditions

Will we soon see a return to the age of polar exploration?

The Inspiration4 mission got a fair amount of press, but I don’t think Jared Isaacman and SpaceX’s Polaris Program has gotten the attention it’s deserved. Not just for the near-term impacts, but as a model going forward to the Moon and Mars that harkens back to the days of polar exploration and forward to the Weyland Corporation. But first let’s start with the current model: NASA and its international equivalents as the monopoly holder on deep space exploration.

There’s considerable concern about the Artemis Program due to cost and sustainability of SLS, and now an unfolding series of technical issues with the wet dress rehearsal that don’t bode well. If Artemis were to be cancelled or scaled back, a US presence on the Moon before 2030 is questionable. But what about China? It doesn’t seem possible the US government will cede the lunar surface to the Chinese. If NASA can’t get us back there with SLS, something has got to give. Military folks have argued that DOD should be pushing the frontier on deep space human exploration, and the Space Force budget requests are ramping up quite steeply. The current administration has not given Space Force the long leash needed to push out beyond Earth orbit, but this could change after 2024. Space Force and USAF also seem much more comfortable with Starship than NASA, who very reluctantly chose it for Artemis because they had to. So, I can envision a scenario where NASA is allowed to try its hardest with the non-sensical SLS-Orion-Gateway architecture, fails, and then a Falcon Heavy or Starship-driven architecture is mandated with more involvement from DOD to satisfy geopolitical objectives.

What about Mars? There’s been some recent buzz about NASA’s Mars plans, and Lockheed Martin has continued to push its “Mars base camp” architecture. In my mind these can be more or less ignored. Timelines are in the 2040s, details are vague, and the capabilities just aren’t there. NASA is unable to attract or maintain the pool of talented young engineers it would take to get there, and this problem will only compound over the next couple decades. Lockheed will not go this on their own; they need the government contracts.

That leaves us with large holes in terms of science, exploration, and tourism-driven expeditions to the Moon, and any human activity whatsoever on Mars. It’s tempting to say Blue Origin and SpaceX will step in to save the day, but this isn’t obvious. SpaceX has a habit of falling back on the “hey, we’re just building the transportation system”, and seems like it needs to be pushed and pulled to put that system to use.

Enter the privately funded expedition model. Let’s go back more than a century and imagine you want to be the first to reach the South Pole or traverse the Antarctic continent. There are shipbuilders who can build a ship, outfitters for dogs and sledges and rations, and willing participants for the crew. But you need money: how do you get it? The government might chip in a bit with some grants, but that’s not enough. The solution that polar explorers drew on was to find wealthy benefactors to fund the missions. From Endurance by Alfred Lansing:

“As with all such private expeditions, finances for the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition were perhaps the primary headache. Shackleton spent the better part of two years lining up financial aid.”

“He finally obtained some $120,000 from Sir James Caird, a wealthy Scottish jute manufacturer.”

From The Last Place on Earth by Roland Huntford:

“As soon as fund raising began, Scott found that in “Teddy” Evans he had acquired an invaluable asset. Evans could play the bluff sailor to landlubbers, and knew how to wheedle an audience into giving money. By the spring of 1910, Scott and Evans had collected the first £10,000.” And “As a means of raising funds Scott followed Shackleton in accepting paying volunteers.”

Roald Amundsen followed much the same model and ultimately won out in the race to the South Pole.

Now we fast forward to 2091, where the fictional Peter Weyland of Weyland Corp funds an expedition to the exoplanet LV-223 with a crew of scientists and engineers in search of intelligent extraterrestrial life (with some ulterior motives mixed in). It’s not hard to imagine similar motives for funding expeditions to Mars for the coveted prize of discovering fossilized microbes, assuming they exist. Hopefully with fewer gut-busting consequences. We could also dip into the Blade Runner universe with its corresponding Wallace Corporation where Niander Wallace funds offworld settlements on new planets. Note a futuristic NASA equivalent is nowhere to be seen in these universes.

I believe we’re on the cusp of a return to the privately funded expedition model for the space frontier. Governments will still partake as Great Power rivalries move starward, and with small grants to reap some of the scientific discoveries. But a blend of private individual financiers, paying volunteers, the shipbuilders (i.e., SpaceX), and the outfitters (a mix of companies like those starting to play in cislunar space) may lead the way. Keep in mind Jared Isaacman is only worth about $2.4B, which probably puts him near the bottom of the list of the ~2,755 billionaires worldwide. If he can fund Polaris and Yusaku Maezawa ($1.8B) can fund dearMoon, what can the rest of them accomplish with chunks of capital deployed to the space enterprise?